


Forward Motion

by awaytobeunshaken



Series: A Million Reasons to Love You [3]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: M/M, Star Trek: Discovery Season 3, do not copy to another site
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:21:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27915937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awaytobeunshaken/pseuds/awaytobeunshaken
Summary: Would you please just move forward, and let me do the same?”After jumping 930 years into the future, Paul and Hugh learn to make a new life for themselves, both in this unfamiliar time, and with each other.Star Trek: Discovery season 3 through the eyes of Hugh Culber.
Relationships: Hugh Culber/Paul Stamets
Series: A Million Reasons to Love You [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1283999
Comments: 22
Kudos: 59





	1. Chapter 1

“We’re on our way,” Hugh whispers in Paul’s ear, in response to the ship-wide announcement that they’re entering the wormhole. With no one knowing what to expect, Discovery is making the journey at red alert, but at least Paul is out of danger and resting now. Even so, knowing his partner, Hugh intends to keep him under for as long as possible; ideally until he’s fully healed.

It came so easily just now, thinking of Paul as his partner again, when he could have barely imagined it a week ago. Still, it feels right; there are a lot of things they both could have done better, and a lot more ground for them to cover, but it’s still what they are: they’ve come through this, in the end, and—

Hugh never felt himself black out, he realizes when he wakes, slumped on the floor, his head cradled against one of the bio-bed’s supports. His muscles are slow to respond, feeling almost as out-of-use as when he came back from the dead, but he manages to turn his head to the screen displaying Paul’s vitals. They’re good, and a wave of relief floods over him.

It’s short-lived, however, as the ship shudders, then rocks hard, nearly slamming his head into the floor. He’s spent enough time on starships to know they must have hit something. Something big. “Tracy, secure the beds!” he shouts as he hauls himself to his feet, throwing straps across Paul’s chest, hips and legs and then working his way down the row of beds to get the others, fighting the unpredictable movement of the ship. Their patients secured as best as they could, the medical staff instinctually brace themselves wherever they can against walls or counters, waiting for whatever’s coming next. 

Waiting doesn’t mean prepared. Hugh had been in a shuttle crash once, about ten years ago, but that was a vehicle intended to function in atmosphere, and to land. It was nothing compared to what he feels as Discovery hits the surface of... whatever they were hitting the surface of. 

After a seeming eternity, they come to a stop, the emergency lighting in sickbay indicating that they’ve lost main power. Whatever instruments they didn’t manage to secure lay scattered across the floor. Shaking himself from his daze, Hugh begins to pick them up. Tracy stops him with a hand on his shoulder. “Someone else can get that. We’re gonna need to free up whatever beds we can.” He nods, thinking of one bed in particular. 

He presses the hypospray to Paul’s neck, not sure what to expect. Well... physically he does, of course, and that part goes as scripted; a gradual increase in respiration, heart rate, blood pressure. The interpersonal side of things is a bit more up in the air, but he’s going to make the transition as smooth as possible, so he smiles down at Paul as his eyes flutter open, gently stroking his temple, hoping the gesture brings comfort while he does a quick vision and hearing check. He’s fine, at least as much as can be expected. “We made it through. It was a pretty rough landing, and I wouldn’t have brought you out so soon, but there’s some people in really bad shape...” He grins ruefully, because that’s the type of day it’s been, before admitting, “We need your bio-bed.”

“Worse than me?” Paul chokes, and Hugh almost breaks at the concern in his eyes, at this side of Paul Stamets that so few get to see, that reminds Hugh of what he stayed here for, what he almost left behind. “When... are we?”

Hugh wishes he had an answer, though he’s glad that Paul’s memory seems to be doing okay. “We don’t know when we are. Sensors are down, comms are down; as soon as I have an answer I’ll let you know, okay. I’m gonna take you to the cellular regeneration chamber, and you should be good in a few days.” 

“I’m good now,” Paul says, seemingly matter-of-factly as he attempts to sit up. This is what Hugh had worried about, having to wake Paul too soon. Of course he’d try to do too much,  _ give  _ too much, before he was ready.

“No, you’re not.” He settles Paul back into the bio-bed. “Take it slow.”

“But, the plasma manifold, EPS... grid?”

Yeah, he wouldn’t be of much help even if Hugh were willing to let him try. “It’s being handled.”

“They need all the help they can get.” 

“I’ll tell you what,” he tries to think of some task, something that would hopefully buy time for Paul to receive a bit more care, some healing of the massive red gash still bisecting his chest, “I’ll let you go to work if you can spell ‘My partner brought me out of a coma and all I got was this lousy T-shirt’. Spell it.”

Hugh watches with a smile as he sees the wheels start turning in Paul’s head, then quickly grind to a halt as he winces. “My brain...”

_ Finally he gets it.  _ “Yes, it’s scrambled like an egg. Now come on.  _ Slow. _ ” Paul lets Hugh lead him into the alcove housing the cellular regenerator, but he’s barely got Paul settled into the machine when he starts talking again.

Spelling, to be exact.

“M-Y...P-A-R...N, no, T-N-E-R, B-R...”   


“C’mon, Paul, you’re not really doing this.” But Hugh knows his mistake. He didn’t give Paul a test, he gave him a  _ challenge _ .

“O-M-A, A-N-D-A-L-L-I...” The letters are coming with more confidence now; Paul’s brain managed to unscramble itself pretty quickly, but it's admittedly not the thing Hugh is most worried about.   


“Okay, you’ve made your point, it was a bad suggestion, but I didn’t save your life just for you to risk it again doing...” whatever he thought he was going to be getting up to.

“L-O-U-S-Y, T-S-H-IRT. There.”

Well, it’s pedantic as hell, but Hugh realizes he has an out. “Sorry. T-shirt has a hyphen.” He grins at Paul, but there’s no malice in it, and Paul returns the smile. “Look, cellular regeneration is the only way we’re gonna get you moderately functional today. One full cycle minimum; five if you want to finish healing that scar.” He’d certainly prefer closer to the five, but Paul’s not wrong that they’ll need all hands if they want to get the ship off the ground, and for now he’ll settle for his partner’s body not tearing itself to pieces again in the process.

He presses another hypospray to Paul’s neck, and Paul flinches. “Ow, are you punishing me?”

“Yes.” Hugh can’t imagine a time when Paul hasn’t taken at least mock offense at his ‘fussing’. “And I love you.” He wonders, briefly, if it’s too much too soon, but it’s true and he needs Paul to know it, especially when the last time he said it was... well, under less than ideal circumstances to say the least. Paul’s little smile tells him it was the right thing to say, but the pained relief behind that smile reminds him how much Paul has been hurt. How much they both have. And it’s a conversation that has to happen, but not here. So he pushes it out of his mind and keeps talking. “And that was a neural blocker to help with the pain, so you’re welcome. And if you don’t stay in here for a full cycle before doing anything else, I’ll have Saru ground you. Understood?” 

And the grin that spreads across his face matches the foolishness he feels inside. He sounds like Tilly, he’s pretty sure, masking his discomfort with a torrent of words. He’s not sure humans are meant to go through the spectrum of emotions that he’s experienced in the past 24 hours.  _ Maybe the Vulcans had the right idea all along,  _ he considers facetiously. But he looks down at Paul’s timid “Understood,” and realizes that somehow, in this moment, they do understand each other, and as he presses his lips to Paul’s, they feel like they always have, soft and gentle and welcoming.

He crosses the corridor back into sickbay, nodding a greeting as he passes Keyla Detmer, then stops as she seems to not even see him. He turns back toward her to watch her leave, not sure what he’s looking for, but she seems to be moving normally; no dizziness and no pain in her movements.  _ Her face,  _ he realizes. That haunted look in her eyes. A look he knows too well after weeks of seeing it in the mirror. Of course Tracy wouldn’t let her walk out of here with a concussion or other serious injury, but... he shakes his head. There are more pressing issues right now, for all of them. Besides, she could just as easily be a bit rattled still by their rough landing; she would have been front and center for it, after all.

Commander Nhan stops him before he has a chance to talk to Tracy. “Doctor Culber, I think Commander Reno could use your help on the bridge.” She frowns. “Sounded like the crash really messed up her back.” Hugh sighs. The engineer has shown a tendency to overstate her injuries as much as Paul understates his. He also knows she’s not one to fall apart in a crisis; keeping a half dozen critically injured patients alive for months with cobbled together medical equipment and her wits was no simple feat. He grabs a full med-kit, since there are likely more bumps and bruises in need of treatment, and heads for the bridge.

“Doc!” Reno calls to him from the comms station. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes? I thought we left you on the Enterprise.”

He shrugs. “I thought better of it.”

“Glad you did. Saved me from Mushroom Boy’s moping.”

He’s not sure whether to be affronted at ‘Mushroom Boy’ or concerned by ‘moping’. He settles for getting to work instead. “So what happened here?”

“In case you didn’t notice, ship crashed. Hard. Not the kind of thing I expected to experience twice in the space of a year.”   


“Nine hundred thirty years,” he retorts, “assuming we ended up when we were supposed to.”

“Either way, something back there went someplace it’s  _ not  _ supposed to.” She jerked a thumb towards her spine. “How bad is it, Doc? How many discs did I slip?”   
  
Hugh pulls a tricorder from his med-kit and begins scanning Reno’s lower back. “You know, the term ‘slipped disc’ is kind of a misnomer. The spinal discs are fused with the vertebrae themselves; they can be pinched or twisted or torn, but they can’t really slip.”

“Oh, good, those all sound much better.”

“Better than a fracture, which you luckily don’t have. I’ll need to get you to sickbay to get to work repairing that tissue damage, though.”

“It’ll have to wait, then, Right now my ass is needed in engineering. We kind of have an entire ship to get up and running. Just give me some of the good stuff and I’ll be okay for now.”

It feels like such a Lorca attitude that he’s almost taken aback.  _ I don’t care what the problem is, just get it out of my way.  _ But they’re a thousand years and an entire universe away from Gabriel Lorca, and Jett’s making a decision about her own care, for the good of the ship. He fills a hypo with one of the stronger painkillers and presses it to her neck. “Give that a few minutes and you should be good. But take it easy, stay off your feet as much as you can, and come find me if the pain gets worse.”

“Got it!” She flashes him a thumbs up.   


“I mean it; find someone else to go crawling around the jeffries tubes or whatever.”

“Jeffries tubes? How crazy do I look?”

“Good. At least someone on this ship has a working sense of self-preservation. Which reminds me, I need to make sure  _ someone  _ hasn’t tried to sneak out of the cellular regeneration chamber yet.”

Paul is dutifully waiting for the regen cycle to complete when Hugh returns. He’s got some music going as well... opera? “Is that one of mine?” Paul nods. “Since when do you listen to opera?” 

Paul’s face goes on a journey, his mouth opening, then closing, his eyes darting to the door. “Don’t you have work you should be doing?”

“Things have quieted down in sickbay for the moment. I thought we could...”  _ could do what, Hugh? Catch up? Like old friends who drifted apart?  _ “I kept telling myself we would talk, eventually, when there was more time. And our time almost ran out.” 

“So you decided to corner me while I’m a captive audience.” Hugh is about to protest, but he sees Paul chewing his bottom lip playfully, and lets him continue. “At first it was just something of yours, something that let me feel close to you. But eventually, I came to see what you loved about it. You always helped me see the beauty in things, Hugh.”

“If you’re gonna get all sappy with me, I’ll leave you in there for another round.”

“Any chance I can blame it on the drugs?” he asks, as if Hugh hasn’t long built up an immunity to Paul’s puppy dog eyes. He shakes his head. “I almost ruined things between us, Hugh. Then I lost you. And when I got you back—”

Hugh holds up a hand. “It’s okay, we don’t really need to get into this right now.”

“Yes we do. It’s like you said. Like I said. If we wait for the right time it may never come. Look, I promised myself, when you came back, that I would do better. But it wasn’t what you needed from me and I almost ruined things again.”

“Paul.” Paul’s hands were secured inside the regen tube, so Hugh settles for placing a hand on his temple. It didn’t fully occur to him before, that Paul would blame himself for Hugh’s reaction, though it's hardly surprising. “I don’t think I knew what I needed. You couldn’t have fixed me, us, until I figured out how to fix myself.”

Paul is silent for a moment, a faraway look of contemplation on his face. “You said... it all came back to me.”

Hugh nods slowly. “It did. I stayed away because I still didn’t quite feel like myself, like something was still missing. But that was you.”

Paul rolls his eyes, but Hugh can still see the tears forming at the corners. “Now you’re the one being sappy. That means you have to let me out.” 

“I do, but only because the cycle’s finished.” Hugh taps at the controls to the regen unit. “I don’t suppose I can talk you into another round.” 

Paul winks. “Normally I'd say yes, but I might not be able to keep up with you just yet.”

“Hush,” Hugh says, but he’s smiling. If they can tease each other again, maybe they’re back where they’re meant to be.


	2. Chapter 2

Hugh thinks little of it when Nilsson ducks her head into sickbay to tell him Commander Reno needs him in engineering. He’s pretty sure that’s where Paul will have gone after stopping by his quarters for a fresh uniform, and while his brief time in cellular regeneration probably wouldn’t stand up to more than light activity, he doubts Paul would feel up to much more than that anyway. Hugh went easy on the painkillers for a reason.

He should know better by now than to discount Paul’s stubbornness. He arrives in engineering with a hypospray for Reno, which she gladly accepts, to see her fixated on a PADD displaying a video feed. Of Paul. In a Jeffries tube. It’s unbelievable enough that Hugh has to say as much out loud to get his mind to accept it, all the while wondering how he even made it up the ladder. Of course he probably did that before the ship started getting tossed around by the ice.

He realizes that this is the real reason he was called here, though he’s not entirely sure what he’s meant to do. Observation and moral support, he supposes. It’ll be rough work getting Paul out of there until they have transporters, and he guesses they won’t have transporters until he finishes whatever he’s doing. So Hugh leans down to get a closer look at the PADD, resisting the urge to snatch it away; Reno’s presumably using it to guide Paul through the repair, and Hugh doesn’t want anything to delay that.

The blood on Paul’s jacket indicates that he’s managed to reopen the wound, though Hugh has enough confidence in his surgical skills to know that it should be superficial. It’s still messy enough to be worrisome at first glance. Hugh’s going to kill him, and he tells Paul as much. But no, the blood isn’t really what’s bothering him, and it doesn’t seem to be bothering Paul; it’s the grimace of pain that Paul is trying and failing to hide. If Hugh had known Paul would go crawling through the tubes like a fool  _ anyway,  _ he’d have gone ahead and upped the dose. He does know these things about Paul; still, it’s going to take time to truly get used to them again. 

Paul completes his task, and Hugh takes a moment to relax his body; as much as he’s managed to keep his mental focus throughout, the physical tension is becoming noticeable. No surprise, really, considering he’s been on his feet for the better part of the last eighteen hours. “Paul, I’m gonna beam you back to sickbay, and you’re going right back into regen.” It’s a sign of his discomfort level that Paul doesn’t even bother to protest. “I’ll meet you there.” He activates the emergency transport and hurries back down the corridor.

When he reaches sickbay, Paul is sitting up on a bio-bed, shirt off, while Tracy runs a dermal regenerator across his chest. “He’s supposed to be in...” 

“It’s occupied.” Tracy cuts him off. “And honestly, this looks worse than it is.” 

Though Hugh had guessed as much, he appreciates the confirmation. “Okay, but as soon as it’s free...”

“Does it have to be today?” Hugh frowns at him, but Paul continues, “I want to go home.” Despite Tracy’s ministrations, Paul looks a bit unsteady on his feet as he slides down from the bed.

“Let me walk you.” Hugh glances at Tracy. “I’ll be back in a few.” 

“I hope you mean hours,” she replies. Hugh frowns. “I mean it. I can keep an eye on things for a bit longer, and you look ready to pass out.  _ Go. _ ” He hardly thinks he looks that bad, but Tracy’s never been one for sentiment, so he takes the hint and escorts Paul, jacket haphazardly tossed over his shoulders, out of sickbay. 

He hesitates outside the door to Paul’s quarters. He’s not been here at all in the weeks since moving out, since leaving Paul at the door and telling him he couldn’t fix this. And he couldn’t have. In the end Hugh had to fix himself, to find himself again, reconnect with the world on his own terms and at his own pace. He just wishes he’d had the words to express that at the time.

Paul is still waiting just across the threshold. “Stay?” He doesn’t say more, but his eyebrows are pleading, his hand hovering between the two of them. 

Hugh takes it and steps inside. “Of course I will.” And everything hits him at once. The rushed packing job, evacuating to the Enterprise and returning, the pained goodbye to Paul in engineering, then the last second decision to stay here with him, only to nearly lose him anyway. The hurried message to his mother... the jump... the crash...

“Hugh, you’re shaking.” Paul puts his arms on Hugh’s shoulders to steady him, and Hugh leans forward, letting Paul’s arms wrap around him. 

“It’s been a long day,” Hugh mutters and it’s as good an explanation as any; It’s been less than 24 hours ship time since their jump to Xahea. 

Hugh feels the bob of Paul’s chin against his shoulder as he nods. “You need some rest.”

Part of him wants to retort, tell Paul that it would usually be the other way around, but he really is too tired. “Shower, first.” His sleeves are still stained with blood.  _ Paul’s blood.  _ He sheds his jacket on the way to the bathroom, shoving it straight into the replicator, then strips off the rest of the uniform and steps into the shower. He hits the sonic in the interest of saving time; as much as he’d like to luxuriate under the warm water, he wants sleep more.

He didn’t bring anything to change into, he realizes, so he grabs Paul’s bathrobe from the hook near the door and steps out of the bathroom to see Paul sitting on the couch. “Oh!” Hugh freezes in the doorway. “I figured you’d be in bed already.” 

“I thought this would actually be more comfortable than trying to lie down right now. Besides, I think I’ve spent enough of today unconscious.” It’s a lie; Paul is half-heartedly glancing at his PADD, and Hugh can tell he’s on the verge of dozing off. But it does conveniently avoid the question of whether they’ll be sharing, which Hugh doubts either of them is in a state to consider right now. 

He nods and walks to the bed and sits, noticing the mattress is already set to his preferred firmness and temperature. Already, or possibly still, he realizes, and the thought makes his heart ache. There’s a glass of water on the nightstand in front of him, the film of condensation indicating it hasn’t been there for long. He takes a couple of sips from the glass, then slides out of the robe and under the covers, luxuriating at the coolness of the sheets against his bare skin for the briefest moment before sleep takes him.

Hugh jerks awake to find the room in full darkness, which is odd, since he’s gotten in the habit of leaving the lights at five percent; raising them back to that level provides just enough of a visual cue to remind him that he’s in Paul’s bed.  _ Not the network. You’re fine.  _ The frantic pounding of his heart begs to differ. It’s been a while since he’s had this nightmare, although he probably could have predicted it, between him skipping his usual meditation and Paul shutting off the lights. “Paul?” he utters softly, not wanting to wake him if he’s managed to fall asleep again. Knowing he’s not getting back to sleep anytime soon, Hugh rolls over and stands in one fluid motion, letting the carpet tickle his aching feet for a moment before poking his head around the partition. 

Paul is nowhere to be seen, but a PADD on the coffee table is flashing with what he assumes is a note for him. He scoops the robe up from the floor and works his arms into the wrinkles sleeves, wondering where Paul might have gone, anyway? Certainly not back to sickbay, and hopefully not to engineering.

Unless... had they even made it off the planet? Were they still stuck on the surface? Had Tilly and Saru made it back from the settlement? He’d been too distracted by fatigue and worry to pay much attention to the big picture. The blinking of the PADD catches Hugh’s eye again, and he settles onto the couch to look at the message.

_ Went to meet with Burnham. Didn’t want to wake you. See you soon. xo _

Burnham? With a start he finally thinks to check the time, but he’s only been asleep a couple of hours, and Tracy would have commed if she needed him to relieve her. He wonders if he might have time to catch up with Paul, then realizes as he looks down that clothes might be a good idea, first.

He doesn’t have anything here apart from the bloodstained uniform he’d peeled off earlier, so he goes to the replicator to print off a fresh one. He prepares to look up the pattern, then his throat catches as he realizes he doesn’t have to.

“Leaving already?” asks Paul from the doorway as Hugh turns away from the replicator. “What’s wrong?” he adds as he gets a look at Hugh’s face. 

“You kept all of it. My measurements, my favorites... even the bed.”

Paul looks at the floor. “Another one of those things I couldn’t quite bring myself to get rid of. I thought about it. I started to, so many times. But there was always that part of me that hoped you might come back. And then I told myself I’d do it once we jumped to the future. I don’t know if I could have, even then.”

“I always meant to come back. Someday.” Hugh ducks behind the partition and starts to get dressed. “And then circumstance forced the issue.” He takes his time carefully tucking in his shirt before carrying jacket and boots to the sofa. “I was afraid. That I couldn’t be what you needed.”

“ _ You  _ were what I needed. Just that. And don’t apologize again,” he adds as Hugh opens his mouth to do just that. “I’m just so, so happy that you’re here.” Paul settles onto the couch beside him.

“I was wondering about your message. How’d we find Burnham already?”

“Actually, she found us. Picked up our signature as soon as I patched up that EPS conduit. Good thing, too. We couldn’t generate enough thrust to get airborne; she showed up just in time to tractor us out.”

“Tractored us with what? How long has she been here? And where, and when, is here?” 

“Michael could probably explain that better than I could. We had sort of an impromptu briefing on the bridge? But Saru wants to have a follow up with anyone who missed it. Who’s senior enough to need to know, anyway.”

“Don’t we have comms working again? You could have called me.”

“I mean, I didn’t want to wake you and have you think it was super urgent or anything, because it’s not.”

“On this ship? Might be a first.”

“Yeah, I think the last time I actually had a full 24 hours to myself was... On Earth. Right after the war.” He swallows. “After you died.”

“Oh.” Hugh’s hand creeps across the sofa cushion, for Paul to take, or not.

“It shouldn’t matter. I mean, you’re here now and...”

“You’re allowed to grieve for the time that we lost; what you experienced didn’t go away just because I came back, any more than my time in the network did.”

“I’m not going to pretend I went through anything close to what you did.”

“Just because two things aren’t directly analogous doesn’t mean they can’t be compared. What happened during that time affected both of us. It made me realize I couldn’t lose sight of my own needs. And yeah, I took that out on you.”

“And I realized I’d taken you for granted. It took losing you for me to realize it. And I get that to you it looked like I was trying to be someone I never was, and maybe that’s true, because I was trying to be a better partner to you.” Paul folds his hands in his lap and looks at them for a long while. “That probably sounded like a guilt trip. I didn’t mean for it to, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t.” He lays a hand on Paul’s now. “We’re both sorry. But sorry’s just a word. It’s not magic; it can’t change anything.” This isn’t as easy as he hoped it would be. But he’s taken a leap of faith to be here, and he can’t just let things be the way they were. “We both need to figure out how we move forward. Together.”

“Okay, I’ll—”

“Wait.” He stands and shrugs into his jacket. “Actually  _ think  _ about this. I need to go see the captain anyway. And then we can talk.” He leans down to press a kiss to Paul’s temple, and heads out the door.

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, boos, you're gonna have to do all the talking we didn't get in canon...


	3. Chapter 3

Staff meetings have felt like a thing of the past ever since Hugh transferred to Discovery. Lorca kept his own counsel, for obvious reasons as it turned out; he’d tell you what you needed to know, when you needed to know it, and that was that. And he didn’t really serve as medical officer for long enough under Captain Pike to experience anything but an emergency one. But Saru seems determined to do things by the book.

He’s trying to pay attention to the meeting, though the engineering and tactical reports aren’t terribly relevant to him, and he starts to zone out a bit, stealing glances at Paul, who’s sitting catty-corner across the table from him in his capacity as senior science officer. He doesn’t seem particularly comfortable with the role, and Hugh can’t help feel a bit conflicted himself. In a sense, this is what serving together was supposed to be like. Being able to just exist in these moments, together. But it never quite managed to happen, and now that it has, it’s in this future limbo, this... uncertainty of where their lives should go from here.

They have each other. The crew has each other. But even so, there’s a sense of being adrift, not entirely unlike he felt when he returned from the network, if somewhat more grounded...

“Dr. Culber!”

“Yes, sir!” His head snaps forward to look at Saru.

“I was asking if you’ve located any more information in the Sphere archive regarding Trill physiology.” Even seated, Saru manages to have a good head or so of height on any of the rest of them, and that combined with his disapproving frown has Hugh feeling like he’s in school again. 

He recovers quickly enough, though, well prepared for the question. The memories stored in Adira’s Trill symbiont are their best lead for contacting the Federation, and the Federation is the closest they have to a shared goal or mission. “Quite a lot, regarding both the physical and the emotional connection a symbiont forms with its host. The bond is all-encompassing; the symbionts can’t survive on their own outside of specific environments on the Trill homeworld itself, and due to the way the symbiont integrates with the host’s systems, removing it is fatal for the host once that integration is complete.”

“But I’m assuming this is all referring to Trill hosts. Adira is human.”

“And quite a bit younger than hosts tend to be; although it sounds as though Senna Tal died unexpectedly; Adira’s joining would have been an emergency situation. But as you said, Adira is human, and there doesn’t seem to be any precedent for a joining with a non-Trill species.”

“Then what have you learned from Adira herself?”

He shrugs. “She’s healthy. Her vitals are within a normal range of human baseline. A basic scan wouldn’t peg her as anything but. I didn’t want to run anything higher level until I knew what we were looking for. Which I still don’t, exactly; but at least I know what to compare to.”

“Very well. Let me know what you find out.” Saru inhales, then addresses the group. “You’re dismissed. Doctor, if I can have another moment?”

Hugh waits across Saru’s desk while the rest of the room files out. “Sir?”

“You said that the crew has mostly recovered from the injuries sustained in our journey to this time?” 

“We’ve still got a few under observation from the crash; you don’t want to take any chances with a concussion. But mostly, yeah. Why do you ask?”

“The crew have not been performing to their usual standard. If you could arrange to run a physical scan on everyone; nothing invasive, I just want to make sure there’s no illness, or hidden injuries, that might be hindering them.” 

Hugh frowns. They’ve all had to deal with the same things; jumping to the future, leaving everything they know behind, probably feeling the same aimlessness, the same limbo, that he is. “Captain, considering, as you say, that this seems to be affecting the entire crew, I doubt...”

“It does seem unlikely that they would all be stricken with a physical cause, however given that this behavior is uncharacteristic, to say the least, I would like to rule it out. And if their health is suffering, I’m sure you’d want to know.”

One thing Hugh gained in the course of serving under Captain Lorca was an appreciation for the phrase ‘malicious compliance’. And while he certainly doesn’t feel the same malice toward Captain Saru, he’s well aware that the path of least resistance might be to complete the scans, present Saru with the data, and let him draw his own conclusions. After all, the Kelpien is a scientist at heart; evidence will make his case better than speculation.

“Very well, I can ask Doctor Pollard to examine Adira while I assess the crew.”

“Thank you, Doctor.”

It’s mid-afternoon ship time, ideal in terms of crew activity and access; between shift changes and standard leisure activities, Hugh should be able to get most of the crew on a walkthrough. Despite his own rough mood, Hugh tries to radiate positivity, and while he gets a few smiles in return, bare nods are most of the acknowledgement he receives. 

He keeps conversation to a minimum, trying to avoid disrupting anyone’s activities more than necessary. He makes an exception, though, when it comes to Detmer. The look on her face as she was leaving sickbay after the crash still haunts him, and the lost look in her eyes now goes beyond just being focused on her workout. The activity itself is secondary, rote, trying to force the mind to focus on the body instead. At least she’s not punching a bag until her knuckles bleed. And the concern in Owosekun’s face tells him everything. He knows there’s no one on the ship who cares for Detmer more.

So he pushes a little. “If you ever want to talk, I'm here.”

“I’m okay,” she responds. She’s not, of course, but apart from maybe Paul, she’s probably the last person on this ship who’d admit it. Honestly, he wonders if any of them would. Starfleet is full of over-achievers, and anyone on this ship who would agree to join this wild, one-way trip to the future, would be exactly the type to ignore and try to push past any nostalgia or regret.

When he’s finished scanning everyone except Gamma shift, he heads to sickbay to have the computer analyze the data. While the analysis is running, he checks on Adira. Dr. Pollard has finished running the internal scan, and pulls the information to the display as Hugh approaches. He can see the Trill symbiont; it’s larger than he expected, stretching the length of Adira’s torso and seemingly connecting to all her internal organs.

It seems that it would be a highly uncomfortable experience, but Adira doesn’t appear to be in any distress; in fact, the previously withdrawn teen perks up as Hugh approaches, eager to share her insights on what she calls her ‘squid’. Hugh appreciates the additional data; empirically it’s not much beyond what the sphere can provide, but the experience of what it’s like to be joined to the Trill symbiont as a human is... well, more than he had to work with before, but still not much. He has little information on the physiology of the squid, and really none at all as to how the joining would affect it. He agrees with Adira’s assessment that their best recourse is to visit Trill, and hope they get a warmer welcome than Earth gave them.

He means to accompany Adira, at first. But he’s been researching some basic psychology, and wonders if it might be best for him to put some of it into practice, especially given Saru’s less than enthusiastic response to his findings about the crew’s mental state. Adira has shied away from nearly everyone on the ship save for Paul and himself. And Michael has been... aloof since returning to Discovery, keeping to herself more than he’s ever really seen from her since she first arrived on board. It might be good for both of them if they have the opportunity to reach out to each other. And there’s also a small part of Hugh that’s concerned that, despite the cheerful welcome they received, the situation might require a more diplomatic touch than he’s trained for.

Hugh hits the door chime, then enters the ready room at Saru’s invitation. “Was there something you needed, Doctor, before you head to the surface?”

“Actually,” and Hugh realizes he probably should have said something to the Captain before he changed the plan on him, “I’ve asked Commander Burnham to accompany Adira. I’ve honestly done all that I can for her, medically, and I think Burnham’s skills will be more useful. I mean, this is a diplomatic mission as much as anything. And I’m just a physician.”

“I would hardly use the word ‘just’ in that sentence, but your point is taken.”

“Anyway, I think I might be of better use here, to help monitor the crew.”

“So you have discovered a problem?”

He lays his PADD on Saru’s desk. “In a sense. My analysis finds that all crew members are  _ physically  _ sound.”

“I notice you did not say ‘healthy’.” 

“Correct.” It’s hard to know the best way to present this information to Saru. While he obviously cares about the crew, Hugh has known since their first clash over the tardigrade that he tends to take a straightforward approach to problem solving. And the solution to this problem will be anything but straightforward.

“But...”

Of course, regardless of his feelings about the data, he still has to present it. He flicks the display from his PADD to the wall screen behind Saru’s desk. “Stress hormone levels are off the charts. If they were mice in a cage, they’d be gnawing at their own tails.” There, straightforward. Though he adds with a smile, “So would you, by the way.” He’s worked with enough COs who’ve felt they were above it all when it came to problems with their crews, and Saru’s definitely shown some potential to be the type.

“My... tail and I appreciate your concern, Doctor, however I need to know how I can help this crew.” 

“I wish I could give you that; I wish I could give everyone here what they need. But I don’t know what that is, and I don’t think there’s any one answer.”

“Well, perhaps a focus on duties, or routine...”

“In some cases, that could work. But I think the crew is already doing that, to the best of their ability, anyway. And, well, speaking from experience, that focus can be a crutch, to avoid focusing on the thing that’s actually troubling you.”

“We all made a decision. We knew there was no going back.”

“Yet we didn’t know quite what to expect, and we still don’t. We’re in uncharted territory; Discovery could disappear tomorrow and it wouldn’t make a ripple. No one would mourn us, or miss us.”

“They need to feel connected.”

Hugh nods. “I guess that’s another reason I wanted Michael to accompany Adira. She was on her own for a year; I think she needs to make those connections more than any of us.”

Paul is already in the mess hall when Hugh arrives to meet him for lunch. Tilly’s there too, carrying her tray past Paul’s table in a ‘trying to keep her distance from the grumpy scientist’ maneuver that Hugh doesn’t think he’s seen since she was a cadet. He collects his own meal and takes the seat across from his partner, waving a hand in Tilly’s direction. “So what happened there?” 

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Paul shoves a spoonful of soup into his mouth, then gasps at the temperature.

“No, but maybe you should.”

“And here I was thinking I could be a considerate partner and not burden you with my... frustrations.”

“Nah,” Hugh flashes a smile, “better to just let them fester.”

The corners of Paul’s mouth turn up a little. “That’s cheating. Besides, it’s really nothing. Saru came to see me; he wants me to work on finding an alternate way to navigate the spore drive that’s not, well, me.”

“I mean, he...”

“Yeah, he’s got a point. As much as I didn’t like hearing it, he’s right. I could have died; something could go wrong with a jump again, and leave us stranded.”

Hugh strokes Paul’s hand. “I get it. It sucks to feel vulnerable, and I know how much you hate that, even when you don’t feel like everything’s depending on you.”

“And I know all that, and I’m trying to process things, and then it turns out Tilly’s been working on a dark matter interface for months.”

Hugh frowns. “And... that’s bad.” 

“She’s  _ expected  _ me to not be up to the task. Why would she go behind my back like that?”

Hugh bites his tongue against the easy retort,  _ because this is how you’re acting.  _ But before he can say anything else, both of their PADDs beep simultaneously. Hugh picks his up to check the message: an invitation to dinner this evening in the Captain’s ready room. He supposes it’s not the worst way to help them all feel more connected. Paul shoves his own PADD in Hugh’s face. “Soooo, is this mandatory? Because it sounds mandatory.”

“I doubt you’d be court martialed for going off to sulk in your room instead, but I hardly think this is a punishment.”

Paul begins to fidget, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together. “I don’t know, I’m just...”

“Feeling moody and not wanting to be around people?” Paul nods. “Which is why you should come. Besides, I’ll be lonely if you’re not there.”

“Fine, you win,” he grumbles, but he’s smiling as he says it. “But only for you.”

Hugh returns the smile “You know how much I love that.”

Paul’s mood actually does seem to improve as they’re settling into their seats at the dinner table, and Hugh can feel his own chest expand as he looks around the room. He knows these people, he’s worked with them, on some level or another become friends with them, but seeing them here, all of them at once, being able to settle, relax,  _ breathe,  _ really does warm his heart. He looks at Paul as Saru leads a toast, and can see some of the anxiety leaving his face as well. It’s not quite perfect; Michael is still on Trill with Adira, and he’s acutely reminded of the people they’ve lost, but after months of constant pressure, sometimes these little moments of quiet are all that’s needed.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t last. Saru’s stiff formality is tolerable enough, although the forced participation doesn’t quite sit right with Hugh. He catches Georgiou’s haiku, and tries to break the tension by flubbing his own, and it seems to work, at first. Tilly’s incident isn’t entirely appropriate for mealtime, as Owosekun tries to point out, but Hugh’s a doctor and has encountered worse. Then it comes to Detmer.  _ Don’t,  _ Hugh thinks as Joann puts a hand on Keyla’s, trying to encourage her to join in,  _ leave her be. _ He’s aware that this is a bit hypocritical of him, however; he did convince Paul to join him here with the argument that it would be good for him, and he would hardly presume to know Keyla as well as Joann does. So he lets the moment play out in front of him as Detmer begins.

He should have stopped it, he realizes later; should have done something. But almost as soon as she starts he’s frozen. “The drones can’t get Stamets’ blood off the medbay floor.” Paul flinches immediately but Hugh is almost too shocked to react; he looks down the table at her, wondering where she’s going with this, thinking there has to be some twist, something... “No, wait, no one can clean up Stamets’ blood...”  _ Blood, all over his hands, his face, surrounding the hunk of debris shoved into his chest. Blood that he’s losing, sending him into shock, and Hugh has to do something, but first he needs to  _ tell  _ him, just in case...  _ And Detmer’s laughing now, and it’s like something has gotten into her, trying to force her to feel  _ something, anything,  _

_ Discovery’s gym, punching the bag, knuckles bleeding and nerves flaring, knowing he should stop, but he can’t... until Airiam catches his hand and draws him away.  _ He looks up. “I don’t think this is--”

“It’s a poem!”

“It’s uncalled for,” Paul retorts, surprisingly calm, considering. Saru’s been trying to bring the situation under control, but by this point he might as well no longer be in the room. “My life is not a joke for the dinner table.” Then again, he’s always tended to bear his anger quietly, at least in public.

“I wasn’t trying to make a joke.”

“I was back at work a few  _ hours  _ after being injured. We wouldn’t have gotten anywhere  _ near  _ Earth if it weren’t for me.” 

It was the wrong thing to say. “You’re not the only one who moves this ship. I’m the pilot.  _ We  _ move it.” On the surface it seems petty, but Hugh’s been keeping an eye on Detmer since that encounter in sickbay and he’s starting to piece things together. Paul in cellular regeneration, while she was left to stagger back to the bridge, stable but hardly  _ okay. _

“I never said it was just me.” He’s got no reason to be on the defensive; he has nothing to apologize for, and now Hugh finds himself willing Paul to just walk away. It’s never been his style, though.

“You think you’re the only essential personnel on this vessel. Look at you; it’s written all over you. You wanna fly this monster? Actually be responsible for every single person on it, every single day? Or do you just wanna be the when-he-feels-like-it superhero and have everybody kiss your ass?”

Hugh puts a hand on Paul’s wrist, wishing he could communicate through the touch that of course she doesn’t really think that, that no one thinks that, but they’re not quite back at that level of connection. And he’s not sure Paul would be in a state to hear it anyway. “The reality is, I’m the only one who can make the jumps.”

“And whose fault is that!” Keyla’s on her feet now, leaning across the table. “ _ I  _ flew us into the future! I landed this ship; I  _ landed Discovery! _ ”

“Yeah, and we barely survived.” Hugh shifts his hand to Paul’s shoulder, almost begging him to walk away now; they’ve both been dancing up to the line and he’s finally crossed it. And everybody else knows it, too. He can hear Tilly yelling, making some attempt to gain control over the situation when she’s the last person who should have to. 

“Why don’t we all just take a breath.” But the attempted intervention is too little, too late. Just like Tilly’s little speech (she’s clearly been learning some things from Saru), just like Paul’s decision to finally throw his napkin on the table and walk away. Hugh gets up to follow, to try to provide some salve for Paul’s emotions, hoping that Owosekun can do the same for Detmer. He’s been tiptoeing around the situation, hoping she’ll eventually accept the help but afraid of pushing her in the other direction. They need every person on this ship, but he knows now that if she won’t admit that she needs help, he’ll need to ground her.

He catches up with Paul outside the turbolift. “You didn’t need to do that.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You just told Detmer she nearly got us killed! You know if she could have made that landing any smoother she would have. Besides,  _ you  _ were unconscious at the time.” The turbolift doors slide open and Paul enters, Hugh remaining at his heels.

“Yeah, after she made light of the fact that  _ I  _ was almost killed. I can’t believe you’d take her side here.” Paul moves to the opposite side of the lift, eyeing him warily. 

“Taking sides? If that’s what you think this is about, then--” he stops short. He was about to ‘offer’ to go back to the single quarters he’d been staying in. And then what? For tonight? For as long as he felt like? No... there was a balance between being the unflappably patient spouse and being  _ callous. _ “Paul, she’s hurting. That landing... it was rough enough from sickbay, I can’t imagine what it was like on the bridge. And she probably did, does feel responsible, whether deserved or not. And when you go through something like that, your mind doesn’t always interpret things in ways that make sense. But you shouldn’t have had to hear that.”

“And I shouldn’t have snapped at Tilly, either.” Paul admits as they exit the lift. I checked her analysis on the dark matter idea... she’s been working on that for months. She must have started it back when I told her about seeing you in the network.” They’re nearly to their quarters by now, but Paul doesn’t say a word until they’re back inside. 

“I was... hesitant... about jumping again. No, not hesitant. Afraid. That you’d be there and I wouldn’t want to leave again. Or that you wouldn’t, and it meant you were gone forever. A Schrodinger’s box that I didn’t want to open because I couldn’t face either of those truths. But in the end it let me save you.”

Hugh slides open the zipper on Paul’s sleeve, exposing the augment and running his thumb over its surface. “Paul, I know how much it means to you. But you know that this isn’t ideal; it never was. It hurt you, in so many ways. And you know Tilly loves you.” Paul blinks. “I mean that, you’re as close as family, and she doesn’t want to see you hurt any more than I do.” 

“Yeah. I guess I owe her an apology. And Hugh... I think we need new quarters.”

Hugh looks up. Paul had zoned out for a few seconds and he’s not about to try to disassemble the train of thought that brought them here. “Why?”

“These ones are haunted. I mean, we have good memories here, too, but they’re not the ones that come to mind for me.” He points at the sofa. “We were sitting right there when we had that argument, right after you came back.” It’s Hugh’s turn now to zone out, blankly nodding as he hears that small voice that keeps haunting him — _ Why are you so angry at me?  _ “And I’ve spent too many nights alone in that bed.”

Paul’s right. Living with him here on Discovery has never quite had the opportunity to live up to expectations, to truly feel like home. Coming to the future was supposed to allow them a fresh start, and they ought to take advantage of that. Hugh takes Paul’s hands in his, their fingers intertwining, and raises them to his lips. “Okay. To new memories then.”

  
  
  



	4. Chapter 4

Paul notices him almost immediately when he enters engineering, and his eyes stay fixed on Hugh as he crosses the floor to the reaction cube. He raises an eyebrow as he approaches. “What are you doing here? Is something wrong?”

Hugh shakes his head. “We’re getting ready to jump to Federation headquarters. It seems... momentous, I guess.”

“Wouldn’t you rather be on the bridge, then?”

“No. I want to be here with you when you bring us there.”

Hugh’s hardly expecting another showy display of affection, and he wouldn’t want that anyway, but Paul does take his hand, running a thumb across the back of it, and presses his lips to Hugh’s cheek. “Thank you,” he says softly, with a smile, then steps into the cube and unzips his sleeves.

He grips the railing surrounding the cube as they go to black alert and forces himself to keep his eyes open during the jump, realizing that he’s never actually witnessed the process going uneventfully. Well, apart from when they were testing the augments, anyway. It’s uneventful enough this time, though, apart from their destination; Paul leans back, the shunts go in, and they jump.

The jumps have always made him a bit uneasy, since returning from the network. Hugh’s not sure if it’s actually something he can recognize after spending so much time there, or if it’s some trick of the mind, a flashback or hallucination. But there’s a flash of the psychedelic electricity of the network, and he’s not sure whether it’s his proximity to the spores or to Paul, but it seems more vivid here.

Paul exits the cube and they walk together out of the lab, working their way around the ring, until they eventually approach what seems to have become an unofficial observation area, dozens of bodies jostling for the best view of whatever they’re flying into. Hugh hesitates; he’s become much more comfortable being around people in general, since his return, but he still has difficulty with crowds, even if that crowd consists mostly of his own crewmates.

“Should we find another way back to sickbay?” Paul touches Hugh’s hand gently as he looks over with concern in his eyes.

“I can go myself, if you want to stay and watch the show.” But he squeezes Paul’s hand with a silent ‘thank you’; they’ve both been working on asking, and telling, the other what they need, but it also feels like Paul actually has been reading him better. Maybe this  _ isn’t  _ so different than how it was before.  _ You showed me, all the time.  _ Maybe Hugh had been the one unable to ask for what he needed.

“Sure.” Paul lets his hand linger a bit before moving away. “Hey, Jett! Eager to get a first look at the new ships you’ll be breaking?”

Hugh smiles as he continues down the corridor, easily finding a quiet route back to sickbay. It really does seem like the entire off-duty crew has gathered in that one spot.

Tracy looks up as he enters sickbay. “Not going to stay and watch the show?”

He shrugs. “A little too crowded for me. I’m sure I’ll hear about it. Or check it out later. It’s not like it’s going anywhere.” 

* * *

It’s a few hours later when they receive the shipwide broadcast for senior staff and all off-duty crew to gather in the shuttle bay. Hugh truly has no guess as to what to expect; with dilithium supplies so limited, Discovery is an asset, but what does that mean for the rest of them. Some retraining, obviously, but will their commissions still be accepted? Surely they wouldn’t all be forced to go through the Academy again. Surely...

He sees Paul standing near the front and goes to stand near him, and though they’re at the edge of the crowd and not quite in it, he’s thankful for his partner’s comforting presence. “Commander Burnham and I have spoken with Fleet Admiral Vance. He... still has many questions about our journey here, but at this time he is in agreement that Discovery would be a great asset to the Federation. She will need some modifications of course, to bring her up to date technologically, but Discovery will remain in service.

“Her crew, however, will be reassigned as Command sees best fit.”

The silence in the crowd that had been thick as gravy fizzes away into scattered voices, mutterings. This wasn’t something he’d anticipated, that any of them had anticipated. It had always been ‘when we find the Federation, then’, but there’d been nothing beyond the ‘then’.

Detmer’s voice, outraged, rises above the chorus. “They’re splitting us up?” He puts a hand on her arm. He might be able to argue that Detmer needs familiar surroundings, that too much change could be psychologically damaging at this time, but he knows there’s only so far he’d be able to push it, and for all he knows she might be deemed unfit to serve. He still doesn’t appreciate the way Paul had kept the truth from him, with his mental state during the jumps, but he can start to understand it now.

“There is no precedent for  _ us, _ ” Saru responds. “So please, I ask you to trust the process.” Hugh’s spent enough time recently serving under a captain who had enough pull to bend the rules, or one who just decided they didn’t apply to him, that hearing Saru slip into bureaucratic speech is a bit jarring. It’s clear that he’s floundering. “What is truly important, is that we are all back home now.”

Paul’s hand slips into his, and his eyes tell Hugh everything he needs to know. They’ve been home, and now that last piece, that bit of purpose they’ve been looking for, is threatening to take it all away.

“They’re not splitting us up,” Paul says adamantly once Saru has left the shuttle bay and the crowd is beginning to disperse. “They’re just not. They need the spore drive. Which means they need me. If they try to assign you to another ship, I quit.”

“And go where? We know nothing about this time, nothing about this part of space. Going back to Earth would be dicey at best. And even if we did find a place to settle, how would we get there.”

Paul shrugs. “All I’m saying is, I have leverage that I didn’t have before.”

“And I’m asking what happens when they call your bluff?”

“I hold firm, and then they change their mind and beg for me to come back, because they need my drive.”

“Paul, honey, I love you, but you will fold. I’ve told you many times how much I appreciate your honesty, but I don’t know how well it’s going to serve us here. Besides, it may not have to come to that.” In fact, after everything, he would almost be willing to jump ship with Paul if it did. But the reservations he stated were genuine, and he’d prefer to find another way out.

* * *

“Please state your name, rank and division.”

The figure sitting opposite sounds odd somehow, not quite robotic but not entirely organic either. A voice box of some kind? No, the discrepancy isn’t in the tone, per se, more the way the words are spoken. A hologram? Possibly. Hugh knows too well how real they could be made to appear even in his own time. And with nine hundred plus years of AI advancement it’s not unthinkable that one could be developed to function as surplus crew. Coming so soon after their experience with Control, the thought makes him uncomfortable. Still, it... he... is waiting, so Hugh responds. “Hugh Culber. Medical Officer. Lieutenant Commander. Oh, and I have a question for you.”

“I will ask the questions, thank you.” The fact that it kept any sense of menace out of its voice only made it seem all the more troubling.

“I promise, I’ll make this one real quick. It’s concerning Commander Paul Stamets. My partner?” And Hugh is grateful that Paul had convinced him to add some measure of legal weight to their relationship. “In our time that would have granted priority in terms of duty assignments. I’m hoping that will still be the case?” He flashes his most charming smile, which is likely wasted on the hologram, but still, it can’t hurt. 

“I’m sorry,” it says, glancing at the PADD which is obviously an affectation. “I’m showing that your partnership with Commander Stamets was dissolved in the year 2257... upon your death?”

If he were speaking to a human, Hugh might try to be a little more delicate. But given that Starfleet is trying to arbitrarily split up a crew that has been through hell together, some more literally than others, and on top of that sends a squad of intelligent holograms to interview them, he’s not so inclined to be generous. “Yeah, you’re right, I guess it would have been.”

The hologram nodded. “So, the crew of the Discovery was presumed dead when the ship was lost during the Klingon War in 2257. The ship was found again just before the ceasefire the following year, but it appears your personnel file wasn’t updated until several months after that.”

“Yes.” Hugh gives a slow nod. “Because I was dead.”

The hologram tilts its head again, quizzically. “Clinically dead?”

Hugh wishes that was the whole story. “Well, I was emotionally dead, too. And I was murdered. That’ll really do a number on you. But my murderer and I are good now.” Well, in the sense that he’ll be a lot easier to avoid now, anyway.

“Murdered. But you’re here now.”

“I am, thanks to a miracle involving the heights of human emotion and some mushroom science that I only sort of understand. Commander Stamets could explain that part of it to you, though you’d want to set aside a week or so.”

Unfortunately, the fun he can have bickering with something psychologically incapable of rising to the bait is limited, and the hologram moves on. “So, after you... weren’t dead anymore, please describe for me the events leading to your arrival here...”

* * *

“So how’d yours go?” He asks Paul as they head back to the ship.

“I explained to him that I was very much essential personnel, in that Discovery cannot perform what I assume will be its primary function without me present. I made it  _ extremely _ clear.”

“He? You realize we were talking to holograms, right?” 

Paul shrugs. “We’re nine hundred years in the future, for all we know these holograms have feelings. And if so, I think past experience has taught us we do not want to piss them off.”

“Fair and fair. Maybe I shouldn’t have needled mine so badly.”

Paul stops short. “Were you...  _ flirting  _ with him? Should I be concerned?”

He turns and takes Paul’s face in his hands. “Not at all, for two reasons. One, that’s more your style of flirting, not mine. And two, I love you. There is no risk of you losing me to a computer.”

All they can do now is wait. With the ship in dock, they’re essentially on leave, but as they haven’t yet been given permission to, well, leave, there’s little to do but roam the ship. Hugh enters sickbay to see Tracy and one of the nurses hard at work; meds carefully organized with labels facing outward, frequently used tools lined up evenly across workstations, the others tucked neatly against doors. He frowns at Tracy, who’s meticulously scrubbing a sink. “We do have bots to handle that, you know?”

She sighs and lets the cloth fall into the basin. “I don’t know, I guess I was just thinking...”

“That if it’s all perfect enough, they’ll realize this is where we should be?”

“Yeah, that’s probably where I was going with it. I mean, no one stays with the same crew forever, but you don’t reassign a whole ship that’s still in service. What the hell happened to institutional knowledge?”

He opens his mouth, but realizes he has no answer. His whole career (barring his time serving under Lorca), he’s been able to trust the chain of command: not necessarily that things would be handled the way he’d like, but that everyone involved was operating from a position of mutual respect and trust. Now they all have to trust their fate to a man who doesn’t know any of them, who has no frame of reference to judge them. They’ve found the Federation, yet they’re just as lost now as when they arrived.

“Tracy, Sam, go home. Or somewhere. Try and find something to distract yourselves. All we can do now is hope that Burnham and the captain can get through to him. I’ll keep an eye on things here.” He’s always been terrible at taking his own advice, though, and soon after they leave he’s scrolling through patient files, searching for errors and inconsistencies. Frustrated, he drops the PADD to the desk with a clatter, programs the door to comm him if anyone enters and the department comm system to reroute to him, and exits sickbay.

He returns to his quarters first, painfully aware that their conversation about finding new ones may now be moot. Paul’s not there, though there’s a bottle of Saurian brandy on the coffee table, unopened. Well if he’s decided against a drink to take his mind off of things, Hugh can guess where he is instead, probably doing the same thing Hugh and his staff were.

Paul is examining the seal on a spore canister when Hugh enters engineering. “I really don’t think that’s going to make a difference. Besides, you know that you, at least, aren’t going anywhere.”

“Well, I can’t say the same for my staff. I  _ need  _ my staff, Hugh.  _ Lorca  _ let me pick my own damn people, and Admiral what’s-his-butt thinks he can send in random science officer #43, who knows nothing about the basic mechanics of the drive, much less the theoretical principles involved, and have it run anything close to efficiently?” 

“Shh.” He takes Paul’s hands from the canister and leads him into the cultivation bay. Though he doesn’t expect the soft, calming glow of the  _ p. stellaviatori  _ to provide any relief to their current situation, at least they’ll have some privacy. Paul leans close to him once the doors are shut, resting his chin on Hugh’s shoulder, their faces touching. “How many times am I supposed to lose you.” __

He strokes Paul’s hair, hating that he has no response, no reassurance he can give that would sound genuine. “I know.” Hugh can hear the sob behind the words, and it sounds pathetic. “I don’t think going over those canisters with a fine-tooth comb is gonna make much different on that front, though.”

“No, but it’ll make me feel better.”

Hugh doesn’t have the heart to push him any farther. “Care if I join you then?” 

They work for a while side by side, with little conversation, just the comfort of one another’s presence, until Paul gets the call from the bridge to prepare to jump, and then a text comes in to both of their PADDs. Hugh glances at his, reviewing the standard mission briefing.  _ USS Tikhov... seed material to cure prion disease... only ship that can make it in time.  _ And then a line at the end that was anything but standard: “We’re being observed. Make this look good.”

“Anything I need to know?” Paul calls as he checks over the equipment inside the reaction cube.

“We’re supposed to rendezvous with the USS Tikhov.”

“The seed ship? It’s still around?”

“It appears so. We’re collecting resources for a medical emergency, though, so I’m afraid you won’t have a chance to poke around. Oh, and if I’m reading between the lines accurately, this may be a chance for the crew to prove themselves.”

“And stay with Discovery?” Tilly pipes in, having joined them to assist in preparing the drive. 

“I don’t  _ know...  _ but it can’t hurt to be on our best behavior.” He glances at Paul.

“I am  _ always  _ on my best behavior.”

“Of course you are. Tilly, keep an eye on him. I should head back to sickbay.” He comms Tracy but she’s already on her way and has contacted the on-shift nurse to join her. He’s trying not to get his hopes up; if there’s any justice in this universe, seeing the competence of this crew in action should be enough, but he’s seen enough in the past few years to know that’s not a given.

He’s still on his way to sickbay when the ship goes to black alert, and he’s barely made it through the doors before he’s called to the bridge. It doesn’t feel like they were hit that hard, but now is hardly the time to dawdle. “Who needs what?” he mutters as he steps off the turbolift. He doesn’t see any obvious injuries as he glances around, and it turns out there are none, at least not here. He accompanies Commanders Burnham and Nhan to the shuttle bay to change into tactical gear and board the seed ship.

  
  
  



	5. Chapter 5

“Admiral?” Hugh gives a slight nod while standing at attention before Vance’s desk. The admiral seemed to make his work space wherever was convenient at the moment, which Hugh supposed was easy enough when everything you needed could construct itself in seconds and all your data was stored in a badge. Hugh finds the lack of stability disconcerting, however, and wonders what his sickbay will look like once they’re finished with it.

“Yes, Doctor,” Admiral Vance responds. “At ease; have a seat.” Ease is about as far as you could get from Hugh’s emotional state right now, but he sits gently in the chair that has materialized on the opposite side of the desk, still not entirely trusting it to hold his weight. “I understand you’ve been working most closely with Lieutenant Detmer.”

“Yes, sir.”

“But you don’t have any specific psychiatric training yourself.”

“No, sir.” Fueled by Vance’s words, his inadequacies settle over him like a blanket. “I have extensive training in neurology, and of course Starfleet Medical’s curriculum includes basic diagnosis and treatment of acute mental health issues, but I’m not a counselor.”

“And it seems Discovery didn’t have one on board.”

“Routine counseling sessions were typically handled remotely; counselors were generally only assigned to long-haul missions, ships that might be out of touch with Starfleet for extended periods.” He could hardly be faulted for the practices of his time, even if he could personally attest that they weren’t ideal.

The admiral’s mouth turns up a bit. “And yet here you are, on the ultimate long haul.” 

“Yes, and if we’d had more time to prepare, and somebody both qualified and willing, we’d have been happy to have them.”

“I wish I could assign you one, in fact I wish I had the personnel to fully fill out your crew, but I don’t. Honestly we’re in much the same situation; therapists are assigned to long-haul missions as needed, and anyone who’s not is stationed here. I know that Detmer can’t be forced to see someone, and I wouldn’t normally take this level of interest in her situation, but I don’t know either of you, and as Discovery’s acting chief medical officer, I need to know I can trust you to monitor the situation and take action if needed.”

It’s... less harsh than he was expecting. Entirely reasonable, in fact. So why is his heart still racing? “Absolutely. Sir. And she knows that.”

“Good.” He taps a button on the desk. “Connie will show you to your assigned quarters on the starbase, and your training schedule has already been transmitted there. Aside from that, consider yourself on leave.”

Hugh suspects that the training needed to catch up on over nine hundred years of technological advancement will be somewhat rigorous, but he can’t help the way his heart lifts at that magical word, ‘leave’. Evenings off, weekends free, no life or death struggles on the horizon. He hasn’t had a chance to explore the amenities of the starbase yet, but maybe he and Paul will be able to fit in an actual date, or several. 

Paul isn’t waiting for him when he arrives, so he settles in to review his training schedule, then begins reading one of the texts that was sent to his PADD; he’s so absorbed by the advances in 33rd century med-tech that he barely notices the next couple hours pass. It’s definitely time for some dinner by now though, and still no Paul. Granted, he’ll probably have a bit more to catch up on, in addition to providing information about the spore drive, but even so, they’re supposed to be doing some relaxing. He taps out a message on his PADD.  _ You know how much longer you’ll be? I was hoping to eat soon. _

The response comes quickly.  _ What are you talking about? I’ve been here for over an hour; I was waiting on you. _

_ Hugh-- Did they give us separate quarters? _

_ Paul-- Maybe? If they were just going off the ship roster... _

_ Paul-- Who would we even talk to about that? _

_ Hugh-- Dunno, they just sent a hologram to show me to my room, not sure they have a superior we can contact. _

_ Paul-- I guess we can worry about it tomorrow. You wanna just stay here tonight? _

_ Hugh-- Technically, I’ve  _ been  _ crashing in your quarters. It’s your turn. _

_ Paul-- Fair enough, send me your coords. _

Paul appears at the door some minutes later, having already changed from his uniform into a gray sweater and navy slacks. Hugh runs a hand through Paul’s hair; it’s dry, but free of product. He must have had time for a shower. He inhales Paul’s scent: Nine hundred years later and he’s still replicating the same soap he’s used as long as Hugh’s known him.

“You look nice. Couldn’t get out of uniform fast enough, huh?”

“We’re supposed to be on leave?” Paul sweeps into the room and throws an arm over Hugh’s shoulder, pulling him into a kiss. “It’s weird to even think about. I mean, when’s the last time we had a night out together?”

“When’s the last time we had a night in?” It’s rare for Paul to propose activities; their aborted opera date a lifetime ago had been something of an anomaly. “Besides, this place is pretty bare bones. I don’t think there’s much ‘out’ to enjoy.”

“I’d still like to see the place, at some point. But we can stay in tonight, if you’d like. Plenty of things we can do... in.” Paul slides a hand under Hugh’s jacket, tugging his T-shirt loose from his pants. 

“What’s gotten into you?” Hugh carefully guides Paul’s hand away from his waistband. “Are you high?”

“Not yet. Why? Would you like to?”

“I’m serious, Paul.” He’s smiling, though; Paul’s mood is infectious. “What’s going on?” 

Paul places a hand on Hugh’s shoulder now, carefully, gently, maintaining distance from his neck. “This is how it was supposed to be, Hugh. You and me, before... everything.”

Hugh tries to remember their first days on board Discovery, after years of catching whatever time they could together, finally having the chance to live together... and yet, they still found themselves catching what time they could together. It wasn’t entirely Paul’s fault, of course, but it still stung, even if Hugh had been a little unfair the times he’d tried to bring it up. 

“I do want to be a good partner to you,” Paul continues, “and I’m sorry for the times I wasn’t.” 

Hugh looks at Paul skeptically. Sure, they’ve always been pretty in tune with each other, but it’s rare for Paul to hone in on exactly what he’s thinking. “Apology accepted,” he says, leaning in to place a gentle kiss on Paul’s lips. He sees tears forming at the corners of Paul’s eyes as he pulls away. “I mean it, Paul. It’s okay. We’re good. I’m here, aren’t I?”

“This is how it was supposed to be,” he repeats. “But everything was always so busy, and I normalized it, and then when I was ready to fix it, you... you died. And then you came back, but I was still alone. And I’m not angry, and you don’t need to apologize, just... don’t let me take you for granted, ever again. Let this be where we start again.”

He could do that, Hugh realizes; a new life, a new century and a new them, and it can all start here. “All right, so we’ll stay in tonight, and then tomorrow we can see the sights.” He smiles. “I hear the fifth level replimat has a stunning view of that greenhouse ship this time of year.”

The next few weeks pass almost too quickly. They do get to enjoy breakfast overlooking the greenhouse ship, the U.S.S. Matthai, and they’re even able to arrange a brief tour. They schedule time in the starbase’s holodecks, and Hugh is pleased to find a beautiful reconstruction of Cabo Rojo; he’d considered showing Paul the real thing when they’d been visiting Earth, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to visit the island knowing that his family and everyone there that he loved were long dead. At least not yet

“I wish I’d had a chance to bring you here before... everything,” he says as he and Paul hike along the cliffs.

“After hearing about how you almost  _ died  _ hiking these cliffs, I don’t think I’d have wanted to come. Here, they’ve at least got safety mechanisms in place.”

“I thought you loved that story. You thought I was cool and badass.”

“Because you  _ are _ cool and badass. I’m a pasty nerd who’s more at home in a bio lab.”

Hugh stops and braces himself against the rock as he turns to face Paul, stroking his cheek. “And if I had a problem with that, I wouldn’t be with you. Yet here we are.”

They reach the top, and look out at the waves lapping at the rocks below them. The sound is relaxing, and the breeze blowing in from the simulated ocean is mild. “How is it?” Paul asks.

“It’s all right.” He inhales. “Still, even nine hundred years in the future, they can’t quite recreate the smell of the ocean.”

Too soon, the holodeck’s door chime buzzes, indicating the end of their allotted time. Hugh hops to his feet and helps Paul up. “Computer, end program,” Paul grumbles, and they head out the door. “What have you got for the rest of the day?” he asks Hugh.

“I’ve about had my fill of Cardassian physiology, so I’ll be diving into diagnostic techniques. They’ve got me set up in an exam room with one of the medical holos. You?”

“Making sure the spore drive can interface properly with the new engines. I just hope no one managed to reroute anything critical while I’ve been gone.” He shrugs. “Not that I couldn’t fix it or anything, I just also promised Adira a crash course on the interfaces.”

Hugh nods. “Speaking of Adira,” Paul continues, “she’s wanting to stay on board Discovery after the refits are complete.”

“I figured as much.” It’s not as if Adira has anywhere else to go, and she’s at least had a brief chance to bond with the crew. 

“The only thing is, well... Adira’s still technically a minor; someone would have to take responsibility for her, as just... a legal guardian, I guess?”

“And you think that should be you?”

“I mean, I’d be willing. Unless Michael wanted to, but as XO she’s got a whole ship she’s responsible for...”

“I’m not opposed to the idea.” It’s not quite the family he would have envisioned for himself twenty years ago, and it’s a logistical arrangement as much as anything, but still, it’s good to see Paul making those connections. “And you’ll have someone new to impart your wisdom on, since Tilly knows the systems backward and forward at this point.” 

Paul shrugs. “So, there’re like, forms and things that we need to sign off on. And we’ll want to have our new quarters set up near hers.”

“In case she has a nightmare?”

“It’s not outside the realm of possibility. She’s been through a lot...”

“Yeah, ok. But we can go over all that tonight. I do need to get to my training.”

Adira’s waiting for him outside his training room a few days later. “Hi.” Hugh smiles gently. “Did you need something?”

“I guess I wanted to say thanks? For letting me stay on Discovery?”

“It wasn’t entirely up to me, but you’re welcome.”

“Well, for letting them let me, anyway. You know.” Hugh nods. “Anyway, I was wondering about those augments that Commander Stamets uses, to interface with the spore drive? They seem, like, kind of invasive. I mean, doesn’t that hurt?”

“He insists they don’t, but...” Hugh’s been present for enough jumps to know that isn’t entirely true. Sure, not all of those situations were typical, but even during the most uneventful jump, he’s seen the clenching of Paul’s teeth as the shunts go in, and the sigh of relief when it’s over. Not to mention more mundane issues like the frequent skin irritation around the implants. “Still, the drive has to interface directly with his nervous system for him to communicate with it, so there’s not really a way to do that entirely cleanly. It’s better than the alternative, at least. And no, I don’t think you want to know.”

“Any way I could get the schematics? I might have some ideas. Interfaces have come a long way since that antique was built.”

“We’re working on the antique part. But yes, I’ll send you the specs. If you’re able to find a... gentler solution, I’m sure he’ll be pleased.”

He never expected that Adira’s solution would allow him to remove the implants entirely; in fact, he’d half-forgotten their conversation until Adira and Paul showed up in sickbay the following week. Anyone else would have needed an appointment for non-essential surgery after hours, but he’s as thankful to have them gone as Paul is, and he works nearly through dinner to complete the operation, grabbing a quick bite for both of him while Paul finishes up in cellular regeneration.

Paul is still in awe as he settles himself into bed that night. “I hated those things,” he groans, pushing up his sleeve and massaging the fresh skin on his forearm. 

“I hated them more.” He loves Paul as much as he ever did, loves the fact that once upon a time he was willing to take such a huge risk to both protect the tardigrade and save the crew. And he certainly didn’t mind the implants themselves. It was what they meant, what they reminded him of: Paul lying unconscious in that chamber, the angry red marks on his torso, his body struggling to heal itself between jumps. “It’s amazing,” he continues, settling onto the bed. “She’s only sixteen.”

Paul rolls over, propping himself up on one elbow. “She... trusted me, today.”

Hugh can’t help but be amused at the concerned expression accompanying that statement. “And that’s bad, why?”

“Because I’ve never had time to be a... tween’s confidant.”

Hugh lets out a laugh at Paul’s seemingly deliberate stretching of the age range for a ‘tween’, but other than that he lets the phrasing slide. “Paul, she’s not going to invite you to her slumber party.” He takes Paul’s hand. “Why do you think you reached out to her today?”

“Because she’s brilliant, and... she seems to have a hard time with people, or doing anything besides work.”

Hugh smiles as Paul finally starts to get it. “Remind you of anyone?”

Paul closes his eyes sheepishly for a moment, then looks back over at Hugh. “And because she loved someone who died, but isn’t really gone.” There’s no hurt in Paul’s eyes as he says it, no blame, and Hugh in turn is able to swallow his own guilt before it bursts out of him. “I never, ever thought I would meet someone who knew that was like.” Hugh feels his chest tighten, not from guilt this time, but with a disconnected sort of grief: for Paul and for Adira; for Gray, whatever and wherever he might be; and maybe in some ways for himself, that he doesn’t have the same opportunity to share his own experience with someone who can understand it.

“I guess I’m grateful to her,” Paul admits, “and I wanna help her, somehow. And she has no idea.”

Michael has found someone to connect with in this future, Nhan managed to rediscover her people, and now even Paul is starting to reach out. Yet Hugh is still finding this world as hard to feel present in as the one he left behind. He beat himself up before for letting Paul monopolize so much of his being, and yet he’s still struggling to find who he truly is. Still, he can hardly begrudge his partner for what he’s found. He reaches out, cradles the back of Paul’s neck, and says, “So tell her.”

Paul leans toward for a kiss, and Hugh accepts wholeheartedly, melting into the warmth of Paul’s lips as they slip under the covers, hands sliding under shirts, skin against skin, until he can finally lose himself for a few brief moments in the peace of their lovemaking.


	6. Chapter 6

“I can’t just examine her without her consent.” He’s sympathetic to Michael’s concerns, of course, intimately so, but that doesn’t supersede ethics.

“No. Yeah. I get that.” Hugh is used to watching Paul work through a problem, trailing off mid-sentence as the wheels turn in his head, then coming to a conclusion five steps removed from the original discussion. Michael, on the other hand, doesn’t seem comfortable in the silence; she needs to verbalize her ideas, even if they’re not quite ideas yet. He can see why Tilly likes to bounce things off of her. “But if I can talk her into seeing you, then you’ll have some idea what you’re looking for.”

“A basic exam won’t give me much to go on. But it’s a place to start.” 

“And I was wondering if you might have any suggestions for  _ how  _ I might go about convincing her?”

Somehow he doesn’t think that Georgiou will respond to the gentle cajoling he directs toward Paul when he’s not eating enough, or sleeping enough, or is overdue for a physical. Threats might be more her style, but... “Considering she’s not technically in the chain of command, not really. If she comes to me, I’ll see what I can find out, but as it is, there’s not much I can do.”

Michael turns to the door, takes a step, then turns back. “You’re responsible for the health of everyone on this ship. At the very least you could ask...”

He doubts anything short of an ultimatum will get Georgiou into his sickbay — she’s stubborn as hell and primed from birth not to show any perceived weakness —but Michael’s right. He has a responsibility to try. “I’ll schedule an appointment for her. But it’s up to her whether she shows or not.”

To his surprise, she does, sauntering into sickbay promptly at 1400 the next day. In fact, he’s so surprised that he blurts out, “Can I help you?”

“Probably not, but it looks like I’m scheduled to be here, so here I am.”   


Whatever it was that convinced her, even if it was just being given an excuse, he’s not going to complain. “Lie down on the bed over there.”

“Funny, I’ve been told you don’t swing that way, but very well.”

Still, she’s clearly determined to try every last one of his nerves. “Keep your clothes  _ on.  _ I’m just going to be doing some scans.”

She’s silent, thankfully, as the bio-bed’s scanner springs to life, running the length of her body from head to toe and back again. “So what precisely are you looking for?” she asks as soon as the machinery has shut off. 

He taps his badge to pull the data from the scanner and display it in front of him. “I don’t know. Maybe nothing,” he adds quickly. “This is just a routine physical.” 

“You’re lying,” she says, continuing to lie still. “You’re not very good at it. Michael put you up to this, didn’t she?”

“No one’s had the chance to examine you since you’ve been on Discovery,” he continues, “and we don’t have any medical data for you from Section 31, either.” Still, he supposes there’s no hiding the truth. And Georgiou did ultimately come to him of her own free will. “But yes, Michael did ‘put me up to this’. She’s noticed that you’re not yourself. That you’ve been distracted, seemingly... unaware of your surroundings at times.” She doesn’t confirm it, but she doesn’t have a snarky comeback this time, either. “When did you first notice one of these... episodes?”

She doesn’t answer, just stares at him. “Where I’m from, the Emperors’ personal physicians were buried with them when they died. It incentivized loyalty.”

She has to know by now that her unveiled threats don’t frighten him. She’s a cat puffing up her fur, not wanting him to see how frightened she is. “Are you gonna answer my question? When was the first time you experienced one of these blackouts?”

“I don’t need your help,” she snaps, and it’s a repeat of so many conversations with Paul, but at least in this case he has the emotional distance to keep things somewhat professional.

“Your condition is serious,” he tells her. “but since you don’t want to cooperate, you can figure out if the root is physiological, psychological, temporal or interdimensional on your own, and get back to me.”

She doesn’t storm off then and there; either Hugh has made the point of how serious this is, or she’s already figured that out on her own. He knows by now that she isn’t going to admit anything explicitly; he’ll need to follow her other cues to pick up on the truth. “You don’t scare me, human,” she mutters dismissively as she crosses the room to his desk and then circles behind it.

“I don’t need to; you’re already terrified.” He remains facing mostly toward the desk as she walks behind him, but keeps Georgiou at the edge of his peripheral vision. He doesn’t actually think she’ll try anything; she’s here because she needs his help after all, loath as she is to admit it, but he’s learned in the worst possible way not to let his guard down.

“I realize,” she says as she emerges on the opposite side, depositing the knick-knack she’d snatched from the shelf behind him onto his desk, “that you see yourself as the grand hero, oracle of the mess hall, savior man to this ship, well... I’m not interested.” He rolls his eyes. She’s apparently as fond of titles here as she was in her own universe. It’s ridiculous to think he’s trying to be any of that, as opposed to just seeing a need and trying to fill it. Right?

Regardless, she’s scared enough to go into full defensive mode, but not quite scared enough to let him help, and however he feels about her as a person, she deserves whatever assistance he can provide. “The early stages of brain dysfunction will feel manageable,” he begins, “‘What was I doing?’, ‘Where did I bury that last body?’, but eventually, if we don’t intervene, you won’t recognize the faces around you. You won’t even recognize yourself. You’ll end your days howling at the reflection in the mirror, a living death; that’s not what I want for you.”

She turns to face him across the desktop. Finally, he hopes, she’s seeing reason. “If I had time, I’d poison your children.”

_ Oh, for fuck’s sake!  _ “If I had time I’d have children! Now do you want my help or not?” And where did that come from? Another life, literally and figuratively. A life before he’d gotten so caught up in his career, before he’d accepted the idea that he’d never find anyone to settle down with anyway. It certainly wasn’t something he’d ever discussed with Paul. They barely managed to make time just for themselves.   


“I want Michael to join us. So that someone can advocate for my ‘dysfunctional’ brain.”

“Do I have your permission to speak with Commander Burnham regarding your medical information?” He asks as Michael enters sickbay some time later. He activates the privacy screen to seal them into more of an office and allow them all to speak more freely.

“Do what you want, as long as it gets this over with faster.” 

Georgiou half turns her back on himself and Burnham in a pretense of ignoring them. He muffles a sigh and asks her, “When did you first notice one of these incidents?”

“Hunhau. We were on Book’s ship, trying to get our hands on the fence controls, so we could free the slaves. We’d managed to piece together a weapon; I was holding it, but it fell. This guy was holding me down and I was yelling for her to get it, and she was just completely zoned out. Like...”

“Like what?” He places a hand on Michael’s shoulder.

“That wasn’t the first time. It was after we came back from the seed ship.” She turns to Georgiou. “It was happening even then.”

“So what are you going to do about it?” she responds, not looking at either of them. 

“It would help if we could get a baseline reading of your brain function, but as I said, I don’t have any prior data for you. I can start with some basic readings, but we may need to drill down to a cellular level.” Which was surprisingly simple now. He wouldn’t quite say he’s excited to try out some of the new equipment that’s been installed in Discovery’s sickbay, but it certainly does intrigue him.

Hugh is monitoring the output while Tracy keeps an eye on vitals; the scan is almost finished when she reports that they’re starting to fluctuate, badly. Still, they’re not quite into the danger zone yet; they should have time to finish. Because if they can’t, who knows where that will leave her.

“We need to stop!” Tracy tells him.

“We’re almost there.” 

“What the hell!” she shouts, and he turns quickly enough to just catch a glimpse of Georgiou’s face as it... spikes? Breaks? into some weird fractal pattern. Now those readings would be something to look into, he thinks, as Georgiou snaps into a seated position, screaming. And then, in her way, saunters out of the room as if nothing untoward has happened.

“What was that?” Tracy asks again. “What would cause someone to just... discorporeate like that?”

She looks almost shaken, which Hugh has rarely seen. “I don’t know. I just hope that there’s something in the scan from when it happened that will give us a clue. Compiling will take at least an hour though, so we might as well grab lunch.”

He spots Paul in the mess hall, sitting alone at a table near the back. “Just you?” Hugh says as he deposits his tray and sits.

“Yes, and before you say anything, I tried to get Adira to join me but they said if I drag them away from that algorithm now it’ll take hours for them to get back on track.”

“They? Is that new?”

Paul smiles sheepishly. “To me it is. They didn’t say anything until this morning.”

“And you’re wondering why you?”

He shrugs. “A little. But, well, they said they’ve pretty much always known. And that the only person they’ve told before now is Gray. And what I really keep wondering is, who hurt them?” Hugh smiles at him and Paul frowns. “What’s that for?”

“That’s sweet. How you care.”

“I mean it, Hugh. What kind of life has Adira had so far that they’d feel the need to hide that? Sometimes it’s almost like we’ve traveled to the past instead of the future.”

He’s seen the fractured Federation, the way the Emerald Chain has used the worlds under its control, and he can’t deny that the galaxy has changed, and in many ways not for the better. But all they can really do is support Adira now. “It might not be the future we hoped it would be, but as for Adira... they might not have been hiding anything, at least not deliberately. Maybe it didn’t matter to them as much at first, or maybe their thoughts got mixed up after the joining and they weren’t sure, or maybe they’re being a typical teenager who doesn’t trust adults to understand them. About anything. Besides, I doubt you had yourself all figured out at 16.”

“Maybe not, but I knew who I was, and I wasn’t afraid to let anyone else know, either.”

“And yet, you’re discovering new and unexpected things about yourself all the time. Like this parental side.”

“Okay, that’s a bit much.” 

“If you say so.” He could continue to needle Paul, but it’s not something he wants to take lightly. The relationship is there, even if Paul’s not ready to put a name to it, but it’s not something Hugh can force, especially when his own feelings about Adira amount to ‘friendly but distant’. He wishes he could find that closeness that Paul has, but it’s still just out of reach. He turns to his meal, eager to get back to sickbay and see what information the scan has turned up concerning Georgiou.

Hours later, he still doesn’t know much more than he did that morning. He’s managed to pinpoint the moment that she... lost cohesion, but there’s nothing to indicate a  _ cause.  _ It just happened and then it was over. He’s able to trace the cellular destabilization from that moment however, and as far as he can tell, it’s spreading. Whatever happened earlier is likely to happen again, and again, until...

Shit. He’s getting nowhere besides discovering the situation is more serious than he thought. A neurological issue he can work with, or at least it would give him somewhere to start from. This is new, and coming from him that’s saying quite a bit. He frowns and activates his PADD to update Georgiou’s chart, and as he finishes he notices that someone’s trying to activate it. 

“Computer, trace that!” He snaps. “Security to sickbay!” Two officers join him moments later and he leads them to the location the computer has pinpointed. Georgiou doesn’t do things halfway; if she’s hacking her way into the medical records, if she’s seen what he saw, she’s not about to just sit still. 

He dismisses the security officers once they’ve escorted him and Georgiou back to sickbay. “Now we are going to sit here, and actually discuss this, and you are not going to  _ fuck with me,  _ because if I can’t trust you, you’ll need to be confined to quarters and restrained during any treatment.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time.” He’s anticipated that response and doesn’t rise to it.

“Michael says she first noticed this happening to you after you were debriefed at HQ, just after Discovery returned from the Tikhov. Would you agree with that assessment?”

He can see her weighing her options, the snarky comment on the tip of her tongue as she battles her inbuilt defensiveness, until she finally settles into the chair opposite him and props her feet up on the desk. That’s fine, he’s not about to expect any overt respect from her; if pretending not to take this seriously is what allows her to open up, he’ll take it. 

“Yes. As far as I can tell.”

“And do you recall anything unusual about your interrogation? Any particular interest in... where you’re from?” He’s warmed a bit to this version of the Federation; despite a rocky introduction, they did ultimately keep the crew together, and morale has certainly improved since then. But they also lack the authority they once had, and what Paul told him about Adira is lingering at the back of his mind, and he can’t predict how they would respond to an individual who might be a threat. And there’s no denying that Georgiou fits that profile.

“They knew I was Terran right away. As far as ‘unusual’, I don’t know. Were the rest of you being interviewed by shitty holograms?”

“I’m not sure the adjective applies, but yes.”

“Well, it applied to mine. They were easy enough to disable, which I had to do in order to speak to a person. And that person seemed  _ very  _ interested in me.”

“Well, I supposed that’s something. Does the person have a name?” Much as he doesn’t want to believe that the Federation is capable of it, with 900 more years of history behind them this might not be the first time they’ve tried to control a threat with some engineered virus, or genetic mod, or whatever it might be. 

“He didn’t give it; things didn’t get all that personal, although he did have a lot of information about my universe, and my people, and what he claims happened there after I left. I almost liked him.”

“Well, I guess it’s as good a lead as any. I’ll need to see if I can get his information from Command.”

“Then I assume I can go, for now?”

He checks his PADD; he has a message from security that they’ve managed to restrict Georgiou’s transport access and secured the backdoors she used to access her chart. “You might as well. I’ll call you once I know more.”

He tries to go through basic channels first, not wanting to press his luck with Admiral Vance, but he’s having difficulty explaining why Georgiou’s debrief log would be relevant to a medical issue, so his clearance isn’t quite cutting it. And of course the Admiral is busy with two dozen bigger crises, leaving Hugh to wait for a response. As he does so, he reviews the scan data again, and again, and again, hoping something will jump out. The effect is there, clear as day, but he still can’t detect anything that could be a cause; it’s almost like her cells were being tugged away with a magnet.

After who knows how many hours, he finally gets a comm from HQ. “Dr. Culber,” Vance says via the holo that’s appeared in front of him. “I understand you’ve been inquiring about Georgiou’s debriefing.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Given her unique situation, it appears Mr. Kovich wanted to speak with her directly. We can try to set up a meeting if you’d like.”

Hugh nods. “Yes, I think we need to.”

Once the call is ended, he pulls up his PADD to check for life signs in his quarters, but they’re empty. It appears he’s not the only one who’s ended up working late today, and he heads to engineering to find Adira fast asleep at their workstation, Paul lingering behind them with his jacket unzipped. “Burning the midnight oil,” he sighs. It’s one thing for Paul to push himself that hard; it’s another for him to put that kind of pressure on a child. 

“Yeah, just wrapping up. Nothing more to do until their algorithm finishes.” Paul rubs his neck nervously; he seems to be anticipating the chewing out Hugh wants to give. But right now he’s more concerned about Adira, and he steps in as Paul moves to wake them.

“Let them sleep. At that age, whatever they can get is golden.”

Paul nods and slips off his jacket to drape it over Adira’s shoulders, and as he expresses his concerns for Adira, and his pride in their work, Hugh finds himself mentally toning down his lecture. By the time Adira stumbles up the stairs to go to bed, the look on Paul’s face has him almost forgetting it. “Pride,” he says, smiling. “It suits you.” 

He again feels that twitch of envy at what Paul has found for himself, that meaning. Of course, he cares about Adira, too; he shares Paul’s concern and pride, but there’s still that distance there, that wall stopping him from making a real connection. He knows what Paul dealt with as a child, growing up with a parent who was almost impossible to please, and while he knows Paul himself isn’t like that, some things are learned... “You shouldn’t push them so hard.”

“It was their choice.”

“They’re trying to impress you.”

Paul takes a breath, then hesitates, chewing on his lip before letting it out. “It’s not like that.”

Hugh places a hand on Paul’s shoulder. He knows it’s not easy, but Paul needs to hear it. “Does Adira know that?”

“I think so?” He frowns and looks at the stairs, following the path of Adira’s exit a moment before. “It hasn’t been all work. We took a break and played a little duet earlier.”

Hugh smiles. It’s been a long time since Paul has played for him, and never for these ears. “I’d like to hear that sometime.”

It turns out Kovich isn’t the cause of Georgiou’s condition, but he doesn’t exactly provide a solution either, at least not one Hugh is willing to live with. Keeping her sedated and waiting for her to die... he can’t do that, not without exploring every possible option. Still, based on what Kovich has told him, what’s happening to Georgiou is as natural a process as salt dissolving in water; there may not be a way to reverse the process. But Hugh is the last person who can take ‘impossible’ for an answer. The fact that he’s alive should be impossible, yet here he stands.

So he queries the computer, which on top of the 100,000 years of sphere data now has another 930 years of Federation history to review. And he can’t help but smirk a little at the look of surprise on Kovich’s face when it finds something.

That something isn’t much, a tiny chance as opposed to none at all, but it beats a sedative and a cozy cell. He just wishes he knew what it was. The computer didn’t provide them a rare mineral or plant or anything to look for, just a planet and coordinates to beam to. So now Michael and Georgiou are there, looking for whatever answer there might be, and all anyone else can do is wait. 

He gets a text from Paul that they’ve finished decoding the message from the distress call. They were supposed to meet for lunch after that, but Hugh tries to put him off; he doesn’t think he can take the mess hall right now. It turns out he doesn’t need to, as Paul shows up in their quarters shortly afterward with a set of trays.

“I can take mine back with me,” he says as he deposits Hugh’s lunch on the coffee table in front of him, “if you really mean  _ alone  _ alone.” 

Hugh shakes his head. “You can stay.”

Paul sits beside him and begins to eat. Hugh doesn’t.

“Is this because of Georgiou?” Paul asks.

Hugh pauses, then nods. “I... we’ve had our... issues. But she’s a patient. I’m supposed to be able to do  _ something.  _ Instead I’m supposed to.. what? Watch, wait for maybe some miracle to happen?”

“Sometimes they do.” Paul slips a hand into his. “But I get it. I... sometimes I still think about finding you in sickbay, wondering if I’d come around a moment earlier...” 

Hugh shakes his head. “He’d have killed you, too.” And suddenly he can see it so clearly, back in sickbay, time slowing as Tyler’s hands reach toward him, so different from his time in the network where every moment blended into the next, with no purpose beyond basic survival...

“Hugh.” Paul’s hands are on his shoulders and Hugh realizes that he’s shaking. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“I’m just thinking,” he begins, staring ahead into Paul’s blue eyes, trying to center himself, “I maybe understand a little of what she’s feeling right now. And if they don’t find what they’re looking for, I just hope she doesn’t have to suffer for long.”


End file.
